Acoustica User Forums

Hey guys, kind of starting the process of looking at new PC's. My audio PC is a Intel duo-core 2.6 with 8GB of memory right now and have no problems running mixcraft right now, although I did hook up dual monitors and it starting taxing the system on some projects. I have another PC for everyday use ( internet, e-mail) and it is old. So I figured I could update my audio PC and relegate it to replace my old one.
Out of all the PC's I've owned I never had one with an AMD processor. I was checking out some gaming PC's and the price difference between AMD and Intel on comparable systems was usually a couple hundred dollars.

So are you just paying for the Intel name? Any thoughts? Experience?

A couple years ago before I built my current machine I did a bunch of research and went with Intel for a few reasons, the biggest being i7 multithreading architecture, which for us means running 2 threads/core, so my i7 3930k has 6 cores but 12 threads so Task Manager displays 12 cores if that makes sense, so when comparing price/performance in i7 vs AMD you really need to compare a quad core I7 with an 8 core AMD and see where things stand.

All that delivered, I know clavguy was running AMD in his machine without complaints.

I use AMD no problem.

The only issue I have had so far is that Waves products don't run on AMD.

The only issues I have with AMD aren't usually Mixcraft related. I have a 6 Core AMP processor (which I have had for a couple of years) and a few Intel based laptops with a similar spec. Bot appear to run fine for me.

Curiously Pete I was literally just reading your now old post on the Collaborations section of the forum - Did you ever get a drummer for Baba O'Riely?

Cheers

John

Pete Stobbs wrote:...
The only issue I have had so far is that Waves products don't run on AMD.

Since when? I frequent numerous audio forums and have never heard such a thing.

I've seen a lot of users having problems with Waves Central, but nothing AMD-specific.

There were issues with Waves v9 and AMD/nVidia graphics cards, but we're talking about the chipset of the graphics card, not the cpu (And, for all I know, that may have been resolved by now).

chibear wrote:so when comparing price/performance in i7 vs AMD you really need to compare a quad core I7 with an 8 core AMD and see where things stand.
.

Did not know this! I was basically comparing quad for quad pricing. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply guys. I'm going to look around for a couple of weeks to a month and find the best deal. I remember along time ago I heard some complaints about the AMD chipsets. I think it was mainly the gaming community. I just really wanted to make sure there was no glaring problems I have not heard about and see how they are for audio computers.

I also have an AMD-based computer, Phenom II X6 1100T to be precise. Mixcraft runs fine on it, but I do run into problems with certain modern plugins that are just too hungry.
With music stuff single-core performance is still important because one synth instance is usually executed within one core. So if you use a synth like Diva, you easily run into trouble when using an AMD FX processor, whose single-core performance is weak as it is geared at multi-core applications. That is why I am thinking of getting the brand new Athlon X4 880 processor, which will be available within a few weeks. It has only four cores, but a better single-core performance than AMD's FX processors. It can easily be overclocked to about 4.3 GHz or more with the new silent stock cooler. Its predecessor, the Athlon X4 860, already had about the same overall performance as my 6-core Phenom, so the new one will be even better, and all that for less than 100 bucks

Windows 10 is said to be much better at supporting AMD's FX processors. For Windows 7 there is an MS patch that fixes W7's faulty support of FX processors.

If I were you and not too much in a hurry, I would wait till Q4 when AMD will launch their brand new Zen processor series, which is said to close in on Intel for the first time in years.

FWIW one of my machines is an AMD dual core, no problems with Mixcraft or Waves.

Performance limitations are as expected from a dual core, otherwise no issues.

I believe there are some minor advantages in the higher end to genuine Intel, but its not mandatory. Probably a classic case of getting what you pay for.

I have an 8 core AMD with 16 gig ram and dual monitors (I forget what video card and I can't check since I am at work right now) that runs fine and runs ALL my Wave stuff with no problem. If you want the actual specs, I can give them to you later when I get home later.

JonInc wrote:

Pete Stobbs wrote:...
The only issue I have had so far is that Waves products don't run on AMD.

Since when? I frequent numerous audio forums and have never heard such a thing.

After numerous e-mails and telephone calls and remote assistance support for them to tell me that they don't support AMD.
I purchased a plug in only to find it would not download or install.

Version 9
http://www.waves.com/support/tech-specs ... quirements

Yep, Waves support will be quick to point out they don't support anything prior to Win7, most DAW's besides ProTools and not only Intel, but specific processors.
That doesn't mean it won't work, that just means they wont help you if it doesn't.

I can't say for sure that your problem isnt/wasnt the processor. (I'd bet on unlikely.)
I can tell you for certain that I've been running various Waves plugins in Mixcraft, In Vista, on a machine with an AMD processor (No thanks to Waves support. ) for several years now without a hitch. With the exception of one specific plugin that was a freebie and isn't something I was likely to use anyway. I suspect the cause is that it requires native side chaining to function. To be honest, I never spent more than about two minutes pursuing it.

Mark Bliss wrote:Yep, Waves support will be quick to point out they don't support anything prior to Win7, most DAW's besides ProTools and not only Intel, but specific processors.
That doesn't mean it won't work, that just means they wont help you if it doesn't.

I can't say for sure that your problem isnt/wasnt the processor. (I'd bet on unlikely.)
I can tell you for certain that I've been running various Waves plugins in Mixcraft, In Vista, on a machine with an AMD processor (No thanks to Waves support. ) for several years now without a hitch. With the exception of one specific plugin that was a freebie and isn't something I was likely to use anyway. I suspect the cause is that it requires native side chaining to function. To be honest, I never spent more than about two minutes pursuing it.

My problem waas that after downloading the current version Waves Central, the download would stop with an error message stating to contact tech support. Like I say after a list of e-mails, remote assistance(where the tech guy saw I ahd an AMD proc, going through the hoops, it was a waste of time for me. I have WIN8.1, AMD64_Family_22_Model_48_-_AMD_A4-6210_APU_with_AMD_Radeon_R3_Graphics. 8 gig ram.

I will just stick with Toontracks stuff.

fredfish wrote:The only issues I have with AMD aren't usually Mixcraft related. I have a 6 Core AMP processor (which I have had for a couple of years) and a few Intel based laptops with a similar spec. Bot appear to run fine for me.

Curiously Pete I was literally just reading your now old post on the Collaborations section of the forum - Did you ever get a drummer for Baba O'Riely?

Cheers

John

Sent you an e-mail.

Pete

Pete Stobbs wrote:[. I have WIN8.1, AMD64_Family_22_Model_48_-_AMD_A4-6210_APU_with_AMD_Radeon_R3_Graphics. 8 gig ram.

Like I said earlier, AMD graphics have been an issue with Waves v9. This is not to be confused with AMD cpus. There are thousands of AMD CPU users who are using Waves plugins daily.

I'm sorry you got a support tech who's either incompetent or has poor communication skills, but there is no known incompatibility between AMD cpus and Waves plugins.

I'm willing to bet if you swapped out your AMD graphics card (Does your system have onboard video?), your Waves plugins would work.

This page benchmarks Intel / AMD chips with certain gaming programs.

Sometimes the motherboard is good enough and the CPU can just be replaced without too much extra hassle but generally, you may want to be able to consider specific CPU's when you're thinking about a brand new computer.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the- ... 10-7870k/7

-h